Robbie Williams arrived at my studio in a blacked-out Land Rover to talk about me doing the sleeve for his Swing When You're Winning. He looked ill, like he had some kind of hangover. He was about to travel to the States and phoned his manager to say: "I can't go." During the day he cheered up and as he left he gave me a hug and said: "Now I can make it to America."

The image I came up with wasn't used in the end - Robbie liked it but someone, somewhere along the line didn't - but we also talked about an exhibition (About Collage) that I was curating in Liverpool. By then I knew that Paul McCartney owned a collage that John Lennon had done, so I borrowed that. Paul also made a sound collage of Liverpool, and he made an artwork too.

I'd talked about John a lot with Robbie and he rang up later on and said: "I've done a couple of collages." At that point, he was interested in art. He'd acquired a couple of Warhols and had made some prints himself in that style. He had also bought the WC Fields head from the Sgt Pepper sleeve, and I gave him a copy of the album signed by John and Yoko, as a present.

Robbie's art was good. One of the collages was of Christ, and the other was of Elvis. One had a smashed Take That record in it, so it was about his life at that point. Obviously there was a lot of interest because it was Robbie, but they still hold up. I don't know if he went on to do more but he would have done some interesting work if he did.

In other news

Rank and file

On 13 April, Metallica sue Napster for copyright infringement, accusing the file-sharing website of enabling "the trafficking of stolen goods". The move quickly backfires, although Napster eventually settles the suit in July 2001.

The kid is all right

Radiohead finish fractious recording sessions for highly anticipated fourth album Kid A in Oxford this month. The move towards a radical electronic sound divides the band but also produces enough material for 2001's Amnesiac.

Blues brother

Moby's fifth album Play tops the UK chart more than 10 months after its initial release, aided by the steady and lucrative licensing of all of its tracks to ads, films and TV shows. It goes on to sell almost 10 million copies worldwide.